What's the connection between this Kelowna woman and the world's greatest footballer?

On December 29th, the world lost who many consider to be the world’s greatest soccer player, Edson Arantes do Nascimento.

He's famously known as Pelé.

Among those who share that sentiment is Kelowna local Miriam Cunha, though as a Brazilian herself, she admits she may be a bit biased.

Her father Antônio Cunha was a famous musician in Brazil at the peak of Pelé’s career - in the 1960s - and met the iconic sportsman himself when he was handing out awards at a radio station.

“Pele was one of the first icons that brought Brazil to the world,” Cunha told Kelowna10. “Before that, most people, especially the north hemisphere, they didn’t know anything about Brazil, where Brazil is, what Brazil represents.”

At only 17 years old, Pelé would score six goals over four matches at the 1958 World Cup. He would go on to become the game’s most prolific scorer and spent nearly two decades enchanting fans and dazzling opponents. He scored almost 800 goals at the senior professional level of the sport.

But that 1958 tournament triumph, Brazil’s first ever World Cup victory, placed the country firmly into the public eye.

“He brought to the world a new style of play,” Cunha explained. “Swinging and dancing with the ball rather than just the straight linear playing.”

Though other players also played in a similar fashion at the time, she holds that it was Pelé who truly made the form famous.

To her, Pelé captured a big part of what it means to be Brazilian in his style of play.

“Being Brazilian has a lot to do with dealing with obstacles in a very swinging and dancing and happy moods way,” she explained. “I don’t think there will be anyone like him after, so he’s going to be missed.”

In one of his last actions in office, the outgoing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro declared three days of national mourning for the legendary player.

Pele was 82.

With files from The Canadian Press